The Maynard School – Building the Next Generation of Tech Stars
08 Nov 2013
The Maynard School Exeter rolls out Apps for Good technology education programme where students create their own apps
The Maynard School has launched ‘Apps for Good’, a UK-wide technology education programme that enables young people to develop their digital and business skills, and create new applications – or ‘apps’ – for mobile phones, tablets and social media sites.
The Apps for Good course is centred on students working in teams to find a real-life issue they care about and to determine how best to tackle the problem using technology.
Throughout the year-long programme, teachers tap into the Apps for Good Expert community of professional software developers, designers and entrepreneurs, who mentor the students and add real world insight as the students develop their app ideas.
The course culminates with the annual Apps for Good competition in June. The top student teams from across the UK travel to London’s ‘Tech City’ to compete for the chance to have their app ideas professionally developed and launched commercially.
Apps for Good COO, Debbie Forster, commented, “As a former head teacher, I am delighted to work with schools that are dedicated to bringing creative learning programmes to their students and using technology to develop more exciting ways for students to learn. Apps for Good equips students to research, design and make digital products and take them to market. But apps are not the point of what we do. Our goal is to produce more able, self-confident, collaborative young people, ready to make a difference to their world. Most children are consumers of technology; we want them to become makers using technology.”
Maynard Headmistress Bee Hughes said, “I am delighted that our students will become fully involved in developing their computing skills, as well as working directly with IT professionals. This excellent learning experience is part of our ongoing mobile learning strategy and will enable students to enhance their core computing skills as well as developing creativity and entrepreneurship.”
The Apps for Good course will be delivered to over 20,000 students with 200 education partners across the UK, working with over 400 expert volunteers.
The Maynard School will teach the course to students in Year 9.